THE CULT OF THE NAVAL BASE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CULT OF THE NAVAL BASE.

Bj UOMMAXIJKR CAUL VOX H»:?.LAIItS, R.X., M.l\ There is probably no more remarkable illustration of pedantic and armchair strategy than what 1 am accustomed to call the cult of the. base. It has attained an almost unassailable position, for it is to be found among the. many errors about sr-a-power made by Napoleon, and there is scarcely a single historian who has not proclaimed himself one of its adherents. Small wonder then that one country should lie sent into transports of joy ami others into corresponding depths of depression because, with the fall of Mount liovtchen the complete possession of thp great harbour formed by the Gulf of Cattaro is assured to Austria for the time l>eing. Completely landlocked, and extending for sixteen milfS, itwould afford an anchorage for a -,y large fleet. But there lies the rub.~-tu is not Cattaro which makes the fleet omnipotent, but the omnipotent fleet which gives value to Cattaro.

Whore arc the British bases now? They nre at Alexandria, Salonika, lyomnos, nnd ii number of places which we have added to o\ir regular British dock. yards nt Malta nnd Gibraltar. 'lhcse? additional bases are all created in war to suit our sea-power, and none would he of any value hut for the ixissession of that sea-power. So we see that when Lecky, in his "Historv of England," wrote that "the English, liy the Peace of Utrecht, returned Gibraltar, Pra-t llahon, and Minorca, winch gave them command of the Mediterranean," his promise was false, however mistaken may have heen the policy of .surrender. Gibraltar, Port M.iho:i, and Minorca had been tho gift of sea-power which gave ui command of tlie Mediterrai.. ean. and therefore the possession of iv lands liko Minorca. AVe might ovoit have won the War of American Independence had wo not b<>en hypnot'; ■"! by the effort to rotv'n the base of C'S. raltar.

MISTAKEN POLICY When nations arc hypnotised.ln this cult they plunge into excesses like oir attempts to create gmt .arsenals at Alderney and \Vei-llai-\\'.'i The Americans, with the narrow outlook of the heavily-prepared base which, like a great fortress, is seldom what is wanted, failed for a long time in the Spanish war to learn from Vernon's expedition utilising Gimntanamo h 1741. Then they seized the place as a base, and all their difficulties resolved themselves, for it was only fifty miles from Santiago. In the French'war, during our supremacy in the Mediterranean, we relied entirety. on undefended bases, generally open roadsteads, just ns the French in the I*7o-71 war coaled outside fV tbree-nule limit of the British ■s'and of Heligoland. The cult of the lm.%e i> probably oneof the* most persistant of nil in the history of strateev.

Alexander the (Wat spoke 'if Cvp-us as "the key to Egypt": and Ptolomv, looking from Egypt, thought the island the key to Phoenicia. Alexander gave it as his opinion that the command of the Mediterranean Sea went with the island of Cynnts. Alcxaadcr the Great, or his historian, should obviously have said that the ixlaad <>i Cyprus went with the loinhiaml of the Mediterranean.

NAPOLEON MISLED. When Napoleon lost Egypt, in I*ol, lie said: "I am losing Egypt, and 1 am losng the Empire of the East.'' Whan ho sold the Mississippi basin, twoyear* later, to flic (/rifted States, he said: "1 am now parting with the future empire of mankind: he who holds the valley of tlie Mississippi will ultimately rule the world." The physical possession of Kgypt and the Mississippi could fulfil neither purpose except through the upbuilding of n navy to win t!ie command of the -ea. These ideas, however, had always persisted with Napoleon. Thus he u'rote to (he 'Directory" : '■ By sciz.ug and holding kgypt I retain and command the destines of the civilised RO rld." Liter on sea-power turned Ir's forces nut of Egypt. With Napoleon the dominant oheet way to convince the men of his time, and according to where he wanted to dominate, so the importance of that quarter became magnified So also he declared "Constantinople is the Umpire of the world."' in the similar spirit the naval historian, Malum, enroll raged his countrymen declaring that Cuba was "the key of the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico " We have had many lessor imitators since then and when Li ban was captured last May Prmce Henrv of Pr.is.sin Jewnbed it as the key of the Baltic. I here has been no evidence whatever of this being the casa. Broadly speaking, th ; , onlv va»ue of tiie possession of a base to an inferior maritime Power is that its fortifications deny its use to the stronger Power It the stronger Pow.t ha* alternative bases,as i n the Adriatic, the latter advantage vanishes; al) d [f t!l( , weftkc , Has alteit.i.tive bases one more , m lv mi'Hiblic! Iks obligations. Hie fortified bases also protect the weaker fU t from tl'f attack of th.-stronger, which is the justification put forward bv Lord Palmerston for his po'iYy of fortifying our dockyards. Th, fallacy lav iu a.s.signn« t;'e role of the weaker fleet to Groat l>r tarn. HELIGOLAND NQT VITAL.

■ U . 1° Heligoland, situated within about forty to fifty mile; from the great (•mil ports. „„j tun hundivd „nd sixty miles from <„,r canst, th.ro was no'real alternative base, and it was an act of supreme folly Mr our MJ„j Htcr> to give it iip 1.1 oppov.t.ion to naval o/"nion. But even h m . .vents have shown that while its IIM „ „,„,,,, |mv(l >.to very great, this unit,,,,, |,, s , , Vils not vital to our ?en-p..\vo,-.